Can an Old Dog Learn New Tricks?
Despite what many will tell you to believe, yes; old dogs can learn a lot of new tricks. Studies have shown that over the 30,000 years dogs have been domesticated that they have started learning nearly identical to how people learn. This question is almost like asking if kids stop learning after they are in elementary school. While it’s true that there are many differences in how dogs’ develop and age in comparison to humans, it has been proven that the way they learn is extremely similar. With that information, you can take away that both people and dogs never stop learning and training can start at any age.
My dog started her training at 7 years old. I have some dog clients that have started even later than that and found great success. A dog’s success relies on how consistent their mom or dad is with doing their homework and incorporating what their trainer teaches them into their daily life. Your dog will always put in double the work you put into them and just want to make you happy. It’s never too late to start!
When you think about a dog learning, try and compare it to learning a new language. It might be easier to pick up on certain things when you are younger, but you also start your second language learning in middle school or high school. I was terrible with languages in school, however I did fairly well in French 1 and 2. That was because they were presented to me in an easier way and did not have as much complexity to what I was supposed to figure out. Nowadays, all I can remember is how to introduce myself, ask to go to the bathroom, say “I don’t know”, and grapefruit. However, if you were to try and put “grapefruit” into a sentence, I would probably go back to my old favorite, “I don’t know.” That’s what learning is like for a dog. Teaching them one word at a time and waiting for them to figure it out will help them learn it at any age. I’m sure that if I kept trying to use French everyday, I might still be able to use more of it. Similarly, if you stop working those old neuro networks, your dog is likely to forget how to use them. It’s important to practice daily, even if it’s only for 5 minutes.
There was an excellent study done using an MRI that showed dogs brains’ lighting up in a similar way to people when given a command. That means that they can interpret language in a nearly identical way. However, if you don’t teach them at language, they will most likely have an experience that you might have when you hear two people speaking a language you don’t speak near you. You are aware they are probably not talking to you and at some point it becomes white noise because your brain isn’t picking up anything familiar and is no longer trying to latch onto the conversation. That’s what happens to dogs when you don’t make it apparent that you are talking to them.
They can still learn at any age. You just need to think of how you would want to be taught to make any progress.
